The Bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team had a promising start in the World Superbike Championship, with its KB998 dominating this week’s tests in Jerez. Axel Bassani and Alex Lowes finished at the top.
Yesterday, on the first day, the fastest was Nicolò Bulega (Aruba.it Ducati), who clocked a best lap of 1m38.142s. On Wednesday, the times improved considerably, but only the two Bimota riders broke into the 1m38s range.
The fastest was Bassani, who set a time of 1m38.478s on his penultimate lap. Lowes also achieved his fastest time at the end of his program, securing second place, 0.201s behind the Italian.
Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki Puccetti), now the official Kawasaki rider in the championship, led most of the day but finished third, 0.720s off the lead. Xavi Vierge (Team HRC) followed in fourth, being the last rider to stay within the same second as the leader.
Álvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Ducati) completed the top five, being the best Ducati rider on a day when BMW and Yamaha did not participate. The Bavarian manufacturer did run yesterday, with test riders Markus Reiterberger and Sylvain Guintoli working on new updates before Michael van der Mark and Toprak Razgatlioglu’s test next week in Aragon.
On Tuesday, Supersport World Championship riders also took to the track, with Tom Booth-Amos (PTR Triumph) leading the timesheets ahead of Philipp Öttl (Aruba.it Ducati), as he did the previous day. Oli Bayliss (PTR Triumph) recorded the third-fastest time.